DATE(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual DATE(1) NAME date - print and set the date SYNOPSIS date [ -n ] [ -u ] [ yymmddhhmm[.ss] ] DESCRIPTION If no arguments are given, the current date and time are printed. Providing an argument will set the desired date. Only the superuser can set the date. The -u flag is used to display or set the date in GMT (universal) time. yy represents the last two digits of the year; the first mm is the month number; dd is the day number; hh is the hour number (24 hour system); the second mm is the minute number; .ss is optional and represents the seconds. For example: date 8506131627 sets the date to June 13 1985, 4:27 PM. The year, month and day may be omitted; the default values will be the current ones. The system operates in GMT. Date takes care of the conversion to and from local standard and daylight-saving time. If timed(8) is running to synchronize the clocks of machines in a local area network, date sets the time globally on all those machines unless the -n option is given. FILES /usr/adm/wtmp to record time-setting. In /usr/adm/messages, date records the name of the user setting the time. SEE ALSO gettimeofday(2), utmp(5), timed(8), TSP: The Time Synchronization Protocol for UNIX 4.3BSD, R. Gusella and S. Zatti DIAGNOSTICS Exit status is 0 on success, 1 on complete failure to set the date, and 2 on successfully setting the local date but failing globally. `You are not superuser: date not set' if you try to change the date but are not the super-user. Occasionally, when timed synchronizes the time on many hosts, the setting of a new time value may require more than a few seconds. On these occasions, date prints: `Network time being set'. The message `Communication error with timed' occurs when the communication between date and timed fails.